Jun 6 Menagerie

Menagerie is a fucking gorgeous coffee shop. This is my first time visiting and I’m kind of blown away. It all feels sneakily perfect. They have a beautiful light font for their name, and the place has the reclaimed but very fancy wood feel of a lot of coffeedelphia, but elevated a bit. While I personally like a really light and airy coffee shop, I have historically also loved darker cave-like coffee shops, and Menagerie has a light soaked front room, and a darker back room (but it has some sky lights, so it’s far from cavy). I order a cafe au lait and it is extremely smooth and creamy good. The granola parfait situation is also really excellent, though I personally wish they had more unusual pastries a la Rival Bros.

What I worry about at Menagerie: I worry very briefly about how similar an aesthetic Philly coffee shops seem to have, and then I decide it’s just a Philadelphia aesthetic and no reason to worry. There are two girls at the next table studying for a med school exam on STDs, so while I sit there working I soak up a lot of knowledge about what exactly might be the cause of an engorged scrotum, and what to do about syphilis. I did not worry about having any of the STDs, but I did worry that I might lose my appetite. I soldiered through. On the other side of me are two bro-y looking dudes who run some kind of bio-tech startup, interviewing another bro who is former military, and good at interfacing with government agencies. They all seem nice and also like characters in a movie who will do something really shady in Act III. I worry that bros are taking over the world.

What I work on at Menagerie: My inbox. I try to tame my inbox, which is startlingly difficult.

Coffee: TBDAddress: 18 S 3rd St, Philadelphia PA 19106Hours: M-F 7-7, S-S 8-7Wifi: Free, but mine did a weird thing where it would only show me google and fb until I fiddled with some settings. Ymmv.Seating: some small 2 tops, some larger rectangular 5 tops, a couple of bigger armchairs in front.